ABSTRACT This research will assess the impact of the motivational and cognitive consequences of affect on the processes underlying effective persuasion. From a processing perspective, persuasion can be modelled as an information processing sequence that culminates in an attitude judgment. That judgment is determined by subprocesses that encode, elaborate on, and integrate some subset of the attitude-relevant information available. From the processing approach, affective states have cognitive and motivational consequences that influence the extent and valence of encoding, elaboration; and integration, and thus of persuasion. Past research in this domain is extended in three directions: (a) the impact of affective states on reception and integration processes as well as on elaboration is investigated, (b) specific tests of the role of cognitive and motivational variables as mediators of the relationship between affective states, persuasion subprocesses, and persuasion are performed and (c) the processing perspective is extended to the investigation of the impact of negative (sad) affect. The first set of proposed experiments assesses the impact of affect on the nature and extent of reception, and its concomitant effect on attitude change. Experiments in Set 2 examine the motivational and cognitive mechanisms through which affect influences elaboration and thus persuasion. The experiments in Set 3 begin to explore the impact of affective states on integration processes in attitudinal judgments. This research will add to our understanding of the impact of affect on persuasion.
